


Moonlight

by somber



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, M/M, a snippet of life as mark knows it, imagined unrequited love but u didnt hear that from me winks, slight angst? but like... not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 22:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14680440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somber/pseuds/somber
Summary: He says them, the three words—I love you—just as he’d practiced, just as he’d wanted, plain and simple because there’s nothing else to say but “I love you” because he does.He really, really loves Donghyuck.





	Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> title inspired by [this lovely song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw3sbCW0yBY)

“I love you.”

The words don’t sneak out of his mouth by accident, nor are they a slip of the tongue or a spur of the moment decision. He’s said too many of those—not meaningless, not worthless, but obscured by worry and fear and false pretense. He says them, the three words— _I love you_ —just as he’d practiced, just as he’d wanted, plain and simple because there’s nothing else to say but “I love you” because he does.

He really, really loves Donghyuck.

It’s not like he doesn’t care for tact and flirtation but good god has he had enough of that, enough of the pining, enough of the pretending. He’s had enough of cuddles hidden under the guise of winter temperatures.

And he doesn’t know for sure,  _can’t_  know for sure that Donghyuck feels the same.

Because even after 11 years spent together, constantly pressed to each other’s sides, Donghyuck remains somewhat of an enigma. An annoying one, sure, but an impulsive, clever, handsome one as well. 

An enigma that only solves itself when it wants to, at its own discretion.

He does unravel sometimes, when it’s 3 AM on a school night and Mark’s phone buzzes, disrupting his sleep rudely. After a cursory glance at the caller I.D. (as if he didn’t already know who was calling), he hits  _accept call_ , putting the phone on speaker.

He slumps back into his pillow, murmuring a quiet “Hyuck?” into the space between them, the space connecting them.

He listens, memorizes. Analyzes the way his best friend speaks about an odd dream he’d just had, hears the way Donghyuck puffs into the microphone as if he’d just run a mile. He dissects the way Donghyuck’s voice shakes, little by little until it’s gone by means of banter. 

Donghyuck speaks of dreams of idols and superstars, about how it’s absurd that his mind could ever dream up a universe in which they’re both famous.

Mark knows. He knows very well that this dream is just a childhood fantasy of theirs that Donghyuck assumes he’d forgotten, because Donghyuck’s never noticed his attentiveness, his commitment to committing every little detail to memory because well, he loves him. 

He’s always loved him.

Which is why it’s interesting that Donghyuck calls him after he has nightmares, using Mark’s uninterested grunts and tired, exhausted laughs to anchor him back to reality.

Not that Mark minds, of course.

He sees how Donghyuck struggles with weakness, with lapses of judgment and insecurities. They are, after all, at the tender age of fourteen.

He has his own worries, his own moments of doubt and depression and extreme self-hate, but his disappear when he writes them down, when he works through them and makes something out of his fears, turns them into wordplay and poems and sings them to his bare walls and polaroids. Donghyuck doesn’t do that. He doesn’t write songs even though he sings like the prettiest bird Mark could ever imagine, doesn’t talk to anyone about them except when its 3 A.M. on a school night and he’s plagued by them. 

And even then, they’re hidden behind elaborate analogies and puzzles that Mark has to work hard to solve, to understand what the underlying problems were.

He doesn’t always understand. He knows it because the next day, Donghyuck greets him at school with purple showing through his delicate under-eye, smile wide but not as wide as usual. He hates it, the way that his answers have such an impact, that the wrong one can make his life feel like some simulation where Donghyuck’s friendship meter visibly decreases when he says dumb things, when he tries his best but still can’t reassure his friend. 

He knows Donghyuck looks up to him, admires him for the things he effortlessly does, such as guitar or basketball or reading music notes off of a page. It’s unfortunate, truly, because even with all the admiration Donghyuck throws at him, he’s still reclusive, shy. It’s something Mark admires about his best friend—his ability to make others feel like they’ve known him for years although its been hours.

He admires it, sure. He’s always wanted to be an extrovert with lots of friends. In the public’s eye, perhaps he is. Perhaps his superficial bonds with his basketball teammates or band group could be viewed as friendships. But really, deep down he knows that he has exactly two and a half friends, and one of them was his older brother, Taeyong.

He gets along well enough with Donghyuck’s friend group, even though some of them are quite a bit younger than him. The thing is, is that at the end of the day, they’re Donghyuck’s friends. Not his. He makes do with what he has. 

He has Donghyuck, and as long as Donghyuck relied upon him like he does, like he always has, he was content. 

As usual, his best friend finishes describing his odd dream and Mark—well, he’s not on his game tonight, he supposes, because he has no clue what he’s supposed to garner from idols and dorm rooms and fighting over petty things in airports while the world watches. He doesn’t know, he just doesn’t know. 

So, he says the one thing he knows. The one thing he’s sure of, in every sense of the word, in every form. From friendship to sarcasm to romance, from shared lunches to abandoned treehouses. From the tender age of three onwards, towards infinity. 

“I love you.” He says into the microphone, wide awake, staring at his ceiling. Staring at the glow in the dark constellations that he and Donghyuck had glued there a good five years ago, giggling about everything that has ever existed and yet nothing at all.

The line falls dead for a bit.

It’s not a bad sign.

Whereas Mark tended to think out loud, with his hands flailing, explaining, attempting to illustrate his process, Donghyuck thought quietly, slowly. He’s usually the last to finish tests because he’s thorough, follows every path his mind leads him down dutifully, no breadcrumb trail needed. He’s silent, deliberating, and Mark waits.

“Love you too, man.” Donghyuck finally decides, voice scratchy and sleep-addled over the line. He says it like a sigh, like Mark had personally, forcefully reached into his lungs and brought the words up and out of his mouth, bouncing them off his tongue like they were puppets on string, made to be manipulated.

Mark tries to lift the corners of his mouth at “man” because really, what did he expect?

Pressing his lips into a smile, ignoring the sting of an ‘ _I told you so,’_  he whispers a quiet goodnight into the darkness before him. When Donghyuck replies, hitting end call for him, he stares up at the fake stars that they’d hung up together, glowing gently.

They mock him cruelly as he fights to rest his eyes.

When he sees Donghyuck the next day, waving to him with the usual fervor (which wasn’t much at all), eyes sunken, purple seas keeping them afloat, Mark can’t help but ponder whether the love he held was the mistake this time.

His heart, traitorous and despicable, jumps in his chest when Hyuck leans into him kindly, and he wonders if perhaps this love of his will hurt more than he’d thought it would.                                                                                     

**Author's Note:**

> just a short lil smth bc as usual i love markhyuck


End file.
